Hardware trojan detection in Analog/RF integrated circuits

Abstract

Globalization of semiconductor manufacturing has brought about increasing concerns regarding possible infiltration of the Integrated Circuit (IC) supply chain by skilled and resourceful adversaries, with the intention of introducing malicious modifications (a.k.a hardware Trojans) which can be exploited to cause incorrect results, steal sensitive data, or even incapacitate a chip. While numerous prevention and detection solutions have been introduced in the recent, past, the vast majority of these efforts target digital circuits. Analog/RF ICs, however, are equally vulnerable and potentially even more attractive as attack targets, due to their wireless communication capabilities. Accordingly, in this chapter, we review existing research efforts in hardware Trojan detection in Analog/RF ICs. Specifically, using a wireless cryptographic IC as an experimentation platform, we demonstrate the effectiveness of side-channel fingerprinting along with advanced statistical analysis and machine learning methods in detecting hardware Trojans both after its manufacturing and after its deployment in its field of operation.